Tesla’s robotaxi program continues to take shape, with new validation vehicles spotted in Plano, Texas this week. The city, located roughly 32 km (20 miles) north of downtown Dallas, is now the latest testing ground for Tesla’s autonomous ride-hailing service as the company moves aggressively to bring robotaxi operations to major markets.
The vehicles seen in Plano were Tesla Model Ys fitted with distinctive LiDAR hardware and sensors, consistent with the company’s fleet of validation cars. These vehicles are used in ground validation testing, which as the name implies, is a stage Tesla uses to confirm that its camera-based vision system perceives the environment as accurately as LiDAR.
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Sightings of robotaxi validation cars have already been reported in Phoenix, Arizona and other U.S. cities in recent months. Following the sighting in Phoenix, Tesla received official approval from the state to begin testing ahead of a commercial deployment.
Tesla has been vocal about its ambitions to scale robotaxi quickly. CEO Elon Musk said during the Q2 2025 earnings call in July that the robotaxi service would cover half the U.S. population by the end of 2025, but this goal depends on regulatory approval.
So far Tesla operates robotaxis in Austin, Texas, where a human safety operator sits in the passenger seat for city drives and in the driver’s seat for highway rides. While in the Bay Area, Tesla operates a ride-hailing service covering from San Francisco to San Jose. In California it is called a ride-hailing service and not robotaxi due to state regulations that currently require a safety driver behind the steering wheel at all times.
